Clean Room #11 (DC/Vertigo): I&N Demand Re: #10: “Welcome to the Dark Room,” indeed! Gail Simone pushes the peril pedal to the metal; and Jon Davis-Hunt keeps pace with some creepy-ass smiles and, umm, a pony man. Felt really good to be appalled like that in that moment. Clean Room–consistently engaging and legitimately horrifying—is one of my favorite reads.

Steve Rogers: Captain America #4 (Marvel): I&N Demand Just as Tom King has saved Batman, Nick Spencer has saved Captain America. See: I love the Hydra twist and certainly trust Spencer enough to see it through to a place that suits our beloved hero. Re:#3: More twists and turns, betrayals and burns–and The Taskmaster. Could’ve saved the twists and turns and the betrayals and burns for the later issues, actually. I mean, The Taskmaster’s pretty much a Leatherman of comic book awesomeness.

Tom King–with help from David Finch, a trio of inkers, and the ubiquitous Jordie Bellaire–did what he can do–did what he does better than anybody else: he crushed me under the weight of a twenty-two page comic book.

He’s got a knack for that, what with The Sheriff of Babylon and The Vision. But this–this is Batman. It’s different. The expectations are different. The investment is different.

Well, I got my two hundred and ninety-nine pennies worth with the first five pages, during which King delivers a dynamic duo of harrowing and hilarious as Alfred–in full Batman regalia–does what he can do to stall for time, to keep Gotham–the hero-come-Pirated villain who wants to destroy the city that inspired his name–occupied until Batman can do what he can do to get to ground zero. You know how Al rolls: he crashes the Batmobile into Gotham and then confronts him like Sugar-Substitute Ray Leonard, and high-capes it outta there once Batman lets him know he’s arrived on scene.

Too effing much!

Important to the sequence as a whole is Alfred’s sentimental soliloquy, in which the brave-ass butler recalls promising Thomas Wayne that he’d care for Bruce if the need arose–and that it’d be “more a pleasure than a chore” because of how simple life would be for the boy. Powerful stuff, Alfred’s fulfilling that promise in this instance: standing up for Bruce the man–the Batman.

Felt that.

Turned the page.

Felt the Batboot and soon the “BDDOOOM”; felt the plane and then the Justice Out-of-Their-League.

Felt the futility of it all.

Felt the fragility of Duke and Claire. Felt the damsel’s distress as she pulled back the curtain to reveal Gotham as god with a short fuse; felt her find the courage to be the hero–the courage to do what she can do–knowing full well she’d lose for winning.

Felt funny as I tried to figure out whether or not Batman ordered Gotham’s murder–whether or not I wanted him to have ordered Gotham’s murder: “Fine. Fine. Do it, then. Kill Gotham.”

Reread it over and over again.

Felt funnier each time.

Felt this before, for sure: a slice Of Mice and Men.

Sounded a hell of a lot like George’s “Gonna do it soon.”

Ended the same way.

Wow.

I felt that.

Head. Gut. Heart.

A heaviness.

That is what Tom King can do–and, man, I can’t wait for him to do it again.

Ugh. I’m running out of vacation–and discretionary income. Rebirth is partly to blame for both, thanks to bigger weekly bags and bills. Also to blame: my love for the heroes of my childhood and my having the constitution of a totalitarian state.

DC and me!

Oh, there’s other stuff, too.

Black Hammer #2 (Dark Horse): I&N Demand Re: #1: Jeff Lemire nailed it: he delivered Essex County with superheroes. Finally. A nice way to follow up Plutonia, which lived in that realm, for sure, but leaned more on the kids than on the capes. Lemire lets loose here, trusting his instincts, as he fans the flames of familiarity, forging, with Dean Ormston and Dave Stewart’s beautiful balance between fantastic and rustic, something unflinchingly fresh. I’ve been down on Lemire’s “doing what he does” to decidedly disappointing degrees (Descender/Sweet Tooth, Trillium/Hawkeye, Bloodshot: Reborn/Moon Knight); here, however, the antecedent doesn’t drown out the current–it enlivens it.

Briggs Land #1 (Dark Horse): Just I&N Brian Wood’s as good as it gets. His Black Road–also out this week—is a solid book: it has a Massive feel to it, and satisfies for that; but I’m hungry for more, you know, with the final course of the perfectly plated Starve having been served up far, far too soon. Expectations are very high for this one. Hey: This is a Briggs deal, I&Nmates!

Batgirl and The Birds of Prey #1 (DC)

Batman #5 (DC): I&N Demand Re: #4: Fear has a new number: 27. Through four issues, Tom King’s got Batman doing things by the numbers–in more ways than one; oh, add ’em up yourself–but this one’s let him down. Aww, snap! The personification of Gotham makes for many wrinkles that King’ll most assuredly irony out by arc’s end. It might take a miracle, man, to put this kid down. Does Batman have it in him? I can’t wait to see how this rounds out!

Nightwing #3 (DC)

Suicide Squad #3 (DC)

Superman #5 (DC)

Black Road #5 (Image)

The Wicked & The Divine #22 (Image): I&N Demand A monthly bright spot–not only because of Matthew Wilson’s way cray-cray colors. OK, mostly because of Wilson’s way cray-cray colors. Sure, Gillen’s greatness shines here, too; and McKelvie’s impeccable consistency is absolutely ambrosial. Thing is, when I think WicDiv, I get most excited about the prospect of Wilson’s wielding his nonpareil palette in yet another innovative way. (He’s also killing it over on Black Widow and hammering home The Mighty Thor, which are out this week, as well. But if you’re a Wilson enthusiast, you already know that!)

Black Widow #6 (Marvel)

The Mighty Thor #10 (Marvel)

Mockingbird #6 (Marvel): I&N Demand Re: #5: “There’s a gift store?” Damn right, there is–and it’s well stocked with Mockingbird! Thank you, Chelsea Cain for your quirky chaos, which is clearly a clever way to, at the same time, mask and amplify your obsessive control over the story you’re telling. High praise: reminds of James Ausmus’s recent run on Quantum & Woody. Concern: these big-event tie-ins more often than not murder momentum. I’m gonna go into this one singing, “We will, we will Mock you!” So good or bad, I’m covered!

Scarlet Witch #9 (Marvel): I&N Demand I’m happy to report that James Robinson’s tucked his junk away for his intriguing turn on Scarlet Witch. This book’s been monthly magic! OK, so we celebrated Robinson’s The Shade (DC)–feels like forever ago–and celehated just about everything else since then save for his full-of-hot Airboy, which was a balls-out blast to the past that sold me on Robinson’s page-bound prickish self, particularly as he hit some notes that recalled David Duchovny’s cock(un)sure Hank Moody in the hilariously depressing Californication. What a Wanda-full world he’s created here–with the help a different artist for each effort in order to create an interconnected series of singular experiences, which reminds of Ales Kot’s groundbreaking-and-then-standing-over-the-broken-pieces-and-gloating Zero (Image). Issue #8 found artist Tula Lotay delivering an appropriately hypnotic performance–one that helped to sell the all-important intimacy and to deliver the Ringmasterful twist. This month: Joëlle Jones assumes art duties. Something tells me the lady’s gonna kill it.

The Vision #10 (Marvel): I&N Demand Later, this very reader, on this very blog, would write a review of The Vision and its creators that no one has written before–and it’d go viral, leaving dancing grooms and blustery moguls dancing and blustering in the datadust. A blurb would be bounced about the Twitterverse enough to convince some eager editor to snatch it and put it in print somewhere Marvelous. Then and only then would the world come to realize how integral Tom King’s vision and his voice have been to the evolution of the medium during this Vibranium Age for comics. For now: on the strength of #9, and King and Walta’s playing us like a Wakandian piano, before diving into #10, don’t forget your flak jacket, your helmet, and, for obvious reasons, your safety glasses. This could get ugly very quickly.

Black Eyed Kids #5 (Aftershock)

Cirque American: Girl Over Paris #2 (Jet City Comics)

Johnny Red #8 (Titan)

Providence #10 (Avatar): I&N Demand Word wizard Alan Moore’s painstakingly finger-banging my brain. I offer it up to him again. There’s nothing like it on the shelf. There can’t be anything like it on the shelf.

Batman #4 (DC) I&N Demand Tom King is delivering the Gotham City goods, particularly by crafting a meticulous and curt Caped Crusader–one who acts and sounds like the Bat that’s been beating about my belfry for the better part of three decades. No surprise really: in The Vision and The Sheriff of Babylon, Mr. King has wisely knighted concision and has mastered merciless moods–all of it perfect practice for this, the grandest stage of all: the rooftops of Gotham.

Justice League #2 (DC)

Nightwing #2 (DC)

The Sheriff of Babylon #9 (DC/Vertigo) I&N Demand Re: #8: “Pow! Pow! Pow!” Indeed. How much can one man take? King and Gerads tore my heart out and placed it right next to Nassir’s, where, bodiless, they beat in time for twenty-two pages of pain. I still can’t get over the juxtaposition of Nassir and his wife: the former–in a fateful flashback–floating in the water while at the beach with his family; and the latter’s dead body being washed by her husband before being buried in an empty swimming pool. Promises, mistakes, apologies–like eating and shitting and flushing. Truth, period: as sad as this book makes me on a monthly basis, I always look forward to the next one.

Suicide Squad: Rebirth #1 (DC)

Superman #4 (DC)

Unfollow #10 (DC/Vertigo) I&N Demand Tweet about twists, eh? Should’ve seen that coming: a bald-faced–hmm, more so bald-headed, s’pose–set up, masked by grisly distractions as the number ticks down. Brutal and totally believable: Unfollow is Williams’ big F.U. to, well, everything–everything that makes us us.

Kill or Be Killed #1 (Image) Just I&N On the heels of the glowingly dismal The Fade Out, Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips offer up another sullen joyride–this time, through the twisted streets of vigilantism. My knuckles are already white–a dingy white, no doubt.

Low #15 (Image)

Paper Girls #8 (Image)

Stray Bullets: Sunshine and Roses #17 (Image)

Tokyo Ghost #9 (Image)

Civil War II: Kingpin #2 (Marvel) I&N Demand Matthew Rosenberg’s the new Tom King–wait for it–pin! We Can Never Go Home was the wake up call; 4 Kids Walk into a Bank is the clarion call. Marvel heeded–and it’s just what they needed: a bright new talent who’s ready to rule the roster. Just hope this doesn’t mean that he’s going to remove the Black Mask. It fits him so very well.